Thank goodness there isn't anyone like that around here. Oh wait. I still visit because I enjoy many of the linked articles and front page commentary but don't comment, or read the comments, very often. Also, after being called a racist a half dozen times I switched exclusively to the Amazon portal on Instapundit.

Why throw in sadism? That's covered by the other 3 traits. The dark triad of "Machiavellianism, Psychopathy and Narcissism" is a well-known concept in "Game". Sigma men who use "Game" concepts to intentionally hurt women are often marked by the dark triad.

Of course, I'd be more likely to believe that internet trolls are a bunch of unwashed, Aspy boys living in their parents' basement. Their lack of empathy simple coming from a physical brain defect and an inability to link the words they're reading on a screen to a real life human being.

"Of course, I'd be more likely to believe that internet trolls are a bunch of unwashed, Aspy boys living in their parents' basement. Their lack of empathy simple coming from a physical brain defect and an inability to link the words they're reading on a screen to a real life human being."

You might be dismayed to learn how many of them are functionally normal adults with jobs.

Canadian researchers surveyed more than a thousand internet users about their commenting behavior.

Putting aside my observation that a news story about Canadian Researchers should spell it behaviour, I question whether those internet users answered their survey honestly, especially if they're dealing with trolls.

I saw the picture of that woman who was outed for harassing the McAnn (if I have the name right) family. The McAnn family had their child kidnapped while on vacation in Spain. The woman who was harassing them on the Internet looked exactly like the kind of person who would harass a family that had just lost their daughter. She looked truly evil, parched, and resentful of just about everyone in the world.......In real life, she doesn't look like she can inflict much more than a dull ache on those in her vicinity, but the Internet gives her an excellent opportunity to inflict real pain. That woman genuinely qualifies as a real troll......Complaints about trollers here should be tagged under the heading of faux trollery, which is itself a form of trolling. Masochists in search of a whipping, not with a whip or a switch, but with an embroidered garment.

MadisonMan: "Putting aside my observation that a news story about Canadian Researchers should spell it behaviour, I question whether those internet users answered their survey honestly, especially if they're dealing with trolls."

Precisely. Self-selection into a survey immediately renders the study invalid.

Of course, I'd be more likely to believe that internet trolls are a bunch of unwashed, Aspy boys living in their parents' basement. Their lack of empathy simple coming from a physical brain defect and an inability to link the words they're reading on a screen to a real life human being.

Apparently a lot of the commenters here are Troll Science Deniers, and deserve to be put up against a wall and pelted with spitwads. The amount of trollishness in the atmosphere has increased a truly incredible kajillion times since 1985, and world governments have done little or nothing to curb it. Fortunately, Microsoft will soon institute a practice of selling troll credits, the proceeds of which will be used to subsidize Hello Kitty and other sources of niceness. Let's all just hope Crack will be able to afford his massive liability in this scheme.

Don't knock Canadians (it's OK to knock Canadian "researchers" because it's always OK to knock "researchers"). I did some legal work for a Canadian company and found them very pleasant people to deal with, paid their bills on time, etc. Their "niceness" was kind of annoying though: They kept wanting to settle. Hard to run up big legal fees with that kid of attitude.

The woman who was harassing them on the Internet looked exactly like the kind of person who would harass a family that had just lost their daughter. She looked truly evil, parched, and resentful of just about everyone in the world.......In real life, she doesn't look like she can inflict much more than a dull ache on those in her vicinity, but the Internet gives her an excellent opportunity to inflict real pain. That woman genuinely qualifies as a real troll

Marcotte comes to mind as a particularly successful troll, in that she's actually paid for her trolling.

The article didn't go into the issue of how one distinguishes genuine trolling vs. having an abhorrent online personality. Marcotte, for example, may actually think she's being insightful and provocative. Can someone be an unintentional troll?

If trolling is always necessarily intentional, then isn't it possible that the only person who knows whether it's trolling is the troll itself?

It is not good to be snarky to customers. If you think the purchases made through your link are insignificant and are dismissive of the income it provides you why not say so. I would like to think that the many purchases I make here monthly would matter to you.

If a customer leaves you for a stated reason the best response is not to sneer.

I don't think garage is a troll. He's not doing it for lulz. He really believes what he says, and he doesn't spam it twenty times in a thread. What he says is not out of the mainstream of political discourse. If I went to a liberal blog there would be many like him.

I don't think it necessary for the Professor to make the point that this is her blog. It is. And she works hard for it and I am glad to make purchases through her link to encourage her to continue the very real effort it takes to create this venue and to police it. I gather she does a great deal of policing behind the scenes including sending some commenters to the woodshed or worse.

And in your example I do not think a professional musician sneers at the man taking his business across the street.

You never know if the former customer was on the verge of buying 100 new MacBook Pro 15 inch computers via her link. Or who would do so in the future after he learned that being a racist is full membership in the comment section of this blog.

The rise of sociopathic behaviors on the internet correlates with the ongoing development of the Vagina as Fascist State. As women gather more political power, often under the guise of privacy rights, their frequent inability to competently and publicly handle these advancements requires, by necessity, a lessening of their societal consequences.

Many women are simply unaware of the training wheels and safety nets society now provides for them; for others, the awareness causes a cognitive dissonance that functions similarly to paranoia and anxiety. The former do not function as trolls, per se: their lack of self-awareness blinds them to faults in their internet content, yet the enfeebled results of such are not an act. As such, it is important to note that annoying behaviors are not, singularly, signs of sociopathic tendencies -- often, they are simply examples of the tunnel-vision inherent in the Vagina as Fascist State.

The latter grouping -- the self-aware women of questionable competency -- is not, by itself, necessarily sociopathic, either. However, many belonging to this group DO lash out as means to distract themselves from their shortcomings. Since they often do not have a core understanding of who they really are, they can easily adopt contradictory viewpoints, and possess an erratic fluidity of identity: if you can tell yourself that the baby inside you is not really a baby, after all, then you can believe everyone else on the internet is self-delusional, too, and act out from this perception.

Interestingly, many men fall into this latter category: they buy into women's self-deception as a way of signaling the act of belonging to the society -- they have accepted the Vagina as Fascist State, and will defend their self-awareness of their capitulation accordingly. As such, on the internet they often lash out at other men from whom they sense danger to their social , while being safe in relative anonymity.

Finally, there are men who are aware of the Vagina as Fascist State and reject many of its premises: ironically, they are often the ones the previous groups would label as trolls. Of course, one of the premises rejected is the casual acceptance of abortion. If a woman can abort a man's offspring with no shame or remorse than there is no shame to be found in realizing most women on the internet are only approximately one-hundred dollars away from giving a stranger a blow-job, with internet communication continuing from this understanding.

I'm of mixed views on garage. Most of the things he says are not out of the mainstream of leftwing thought, but he refuses to engage in dialog, preferring dodges and taunts, nonsequitors and irrelevancies. He loves the cheap shot and is perfectly happy twisting facts to suit his needs. Further, he ignores questions that are hard for him to answer, never granting that someone raised a valid point.